At First, There were Good Intentions
by wbss21
Summary: Thor: The Dark World spoilers ahead. Post-T:TDW. Loki always thought there would be so much time to make everything right.
1. Chapter 1

**At first, there were Good Intentions:**

At first, it is only that he cannot _breathe_.

There is no air, and he feels his eyes go wide with the effort of finding it, his hands lifting uselessly, as though that will somehow help.

He tries gasping for it, tries sucking in deep breaths, like Mother used to tell him to when he was a child and he was afraid.

"_Deep breaths, my child. Deep breaths_."

He tries, but all that will come is nothing, and he can't get one. He _can't_. He tries so hard, but he can't.

At first, it is only this.

And then, slowly, he hears something like rhythmic drumming, pounding in his temples, and he thinks a voice, blurred and undefined, like listening through water.

It is only when he feels the ground beneath him vibrate with a crash, and there is suddenly upon him a terrible warmth, sliding beneath the nape of his neck, he realizes the sounds were the beating of boots and the broken voice of his brother.

His brother.

Thor.

Oh gods, _Thor_…

And then the pain comes, and he is _terrified_.

Thor… Thor…

He wants… oh, he wants him…

His head lolls back with the agony of it, and he feels that warmth squeeze as his throat constricts, and he tries again to breathe.

His eyes sting, and he cannot see well. All he can see is black wastes and bleak, sunless sky.

His head is coming back forward, and he doesn't have the strength for it. He can feel, he doesn't have the strength.

The world spins, and then, he looks up, and Thor is there. _Thor is there_.

And his hands curl uselessly as he tries to reach, as his mind whirls and he wants to _hold on_ to the warmth of his brother. He wants to hold on, he wants Thor to hold on to him, because he doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to go, and he's so scared. He's so scared.

"Oh, you fool. You _didn't listen_."

Loki wants to beg Thor to hold on to him, because he's scared. He wants to beg Thor not to let him go. To keep him safe.

"_Please, please, keep me safe_."

But he can't make the words form.

His tongue feels heavy and done, and he sputters helplessly as his eyes lock onto the face above him.

"I am a fool." He stammers, trembling.

He's beginning to feel cold.

And new fear takes him.

He's never…

Never felt this before.

Never felt cold.

He tries swallowing, and he can't, and then a fresh wave of ripping pain tears through him, and he rocks forward in desperate panic, eyes clamping shut, and his voice breaks apart and hitches as he tries to breathe.

"I'm a _fffoool_."

And Thor is there. Thor is holding him. He's holding onto him. Loki knows, because where his hands are is warm.

The rest is so cold.

But where Thor touches him, he's warm.

He's holding him, and then he's shushing him.

"Shhhshhhshhh…" he says, and Loki shutters. "Stay with me, okay?"

And there is warmth on his face, where Thor's palm presses, pushing back dishevled hair, and Loki stares at him, and sees the naked sadness there, his great, handsome features twisted in his own pain.

And he knows.

Loki knows he's dying.

He tries, then, panicked and choked with fear, reaching for his magic.

But it isn't there.

He can't touch it.

He can feel it, bleeding out of him, rapid and unceasing. And he can't stop it. He can't find it. Can't _control_…

And none of this was supposed to happen.

None of this… none of any of this…

He sees Thor, and he wants to _say_, he wants to make him understand. He wants to tell the truth, and please, make Thor understand, make Thor see, he never meant for any of this to happen.

It was only, he wanted for things to be alright. Only that he was afraid, and he wanted to be good. He wanted to be looked upon well. Because look, couldn't they _see_? Couldn't they see he wanted what was good for the Realm? Couldn't they see the foolery of letting Thor take the throne, inexperienced and filled with battle lust as he was?

Couldn't Odin see? Couldn't Odin see him? See that he only wanted what was right for the Realm? What was right for them? For all of them?

Couldn't Odin see?

He never meant…

He never meant for any of this. Never wanted any of this.

And he wants to say to Thor. He wants to make Thor understand.

But he can't now.

He _can't_.

It's _too late_, and he doesn't have _time_.

He was supposed to have so much _time_.

And he can't tell him. He can't explain. Can't confess any of what happened, any of what they did to him. Can't make Thor understand he didn't mean for any of this. Didn't _want _any of this. Can't admit he was afraid, and lost, and he didn't know what to do. Didn't know what to _do_ without his big brother.

His mind races, frantic and searching and desperate. And all his eloquence is gone. All his silvertongue, useless and dead, and no words can he find.

Still, he tries. And all that comes from his numbing lips and trembling voice is to tell him "I'm sorry."

He says it, and it feels right. And it feels like not enough. And he says it again, rushed and urgent.

"I'm sorry."

And he wants Thor to understand so badly. He wants Thor to _see_. But this isn't _enough_, and he doesn't have the _time _anymore, and he'll never know, he'll never see…

"I'm sorry." He says again, and it isn't enough.

"It's alright." Thor says. His great, thundering voice is weak and shaking, and it's so wrong. It isn't right at all.

There is such sorrow etched and deep within his face, and Loki wonders at it, and hates himself that he should have put it there with this final act of foolish heroics.

He never could do it right.

He never could do any of this right.

And he doesn't even know why. Doesn't understand.

Only that he saw Thor. Saw that monster killing Thor, and he moved, because that was his position. He watched Thor's back. That was his place. He guarded Thor's back.

And Thor was relying on him. Thor trusted him. And he couldn't… he _couldn't_ let that monster kill Thor too. Not Thor too… Not when he'd let him kill…

"I'll tell Father what you did here today." Thor says.

And Loki feels himself losing.

What strength is left goes, suddenly, and he stops. He stops shaking.

His body falls still.

He stares up into his brother's eyes. He stares up, and he sees all the ruin his own actions have wrought, even in his wish to do well.

And he thinks, maybe… he hopes then Thor knows. Even if he caused him suffering in it, he meant well..

He meant well…

He's dying.

He knows it.

There is no fighting this anymore.

And so he doesn't.

He doesn't anymore.

He won't go to Valhalla. He won't see Mother.

He doesn't deserve that.

He stares up into his brother's eyes, and everything is so cold now. It's so cold, and the pain has stopped. He can't feel it anymore.

He can't feel anything anymore.

He stares up at Thor, and he hopes he understands, even when he's known so well from the past the danger of ever hoping at all.

"… I didn't do it for him." He says.

And from him the world washes away forever.

/

**AN: So, theory time. I think, in the scene from "Thor: The Dark World", where Loki seemingly dies, that everything he says to Thor in that moment is true. **

**Whether Loki really believes he's dying or not, I think the only times we see Loki being truthful are either, A: when he loses control of his emotions and flips out, or B: when he thinks he won't have to face the consequences of being truthful.**

**In this particular circumstance, whether Loki is pretending to die, or truly believes it, I think he assumes this is the last time he'll ever, really speak to Thor as himself. And because of that, he allows himself to tell Thor the truth. Loki really does believe himself to be a fool, his self-loathing is always quite evident, and he is sorry, I think. I don't think he feels any sort of pride for anything he's done, and we see moments throughout the film where he's both frustrated and angry at himself for being unable to do the right thing. And it's the same for the things he says to Thor, as Odin, at the end of the film. He feels safe in saying how he really feels, because he doesn't have to then face the consequences of revealing those truths.**

**Of course, in my version, he actually thinks he's dying, and I DO believe Loki actually got himself impaled trying to save Thor. Because, for one, we see throughout the films how Loki's and Frigga's illusions vanish when touched, but that didn't happen to Loki when he got run through, so clearly, that wasn't an illusion. Secondly, Loki could have so easily chosen that moment, when Kurse is beating the hell out of Thor, to simply run away and make his escape. He could have easily left Thor to his fate, but he didn't. Instead he saved him, and put his own life very much at risk in doing so.**

**Anyway, enough explanation. I'm planning on continuing this and delving into what happens after Loki takes the throne of Asgard, and everything that comes out of that. So this is just sort of a prologue. I hope you enjoyed it! And please let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

He wakes, and he is in Hel.

The sky above him is naught but a mass of swirling black smoke and burnt fire. Blurred and bled together colors he cannot distinguish from one another, his focus gone and ruined as it spins relentlessly, refusing to still.

The ground beneath him is hard and unyielding, the air heavy with the smell of soot and ozone and the cloying metallic copper of blood. And it is cold. Near suffocating in its oppression.

For a moment, though, none of this registers.

None of it matters.

He is dead.

He is in Hel.

And finally, the agony of his wretched existence has come to an end.

For a moment, relief floods him like a breaking damn, for the freedom he has gained from suffering.

He has wanted to die for so very long.

But as the moments pass in seeming eternity, and his eyes stay fixed and unmoving on the sky above, there is a sense gradually of clarity and feel.

He can _feel_.

Too well, he can feel.

Too well, he can see, and hear, and taste.

And all too abruptly then, it comes crashing in.

_Pain_.

And no… no, that isn't right.

That isn't right, even for those condemned to eternity in the halls of Hela herself.

Hela, who he'd thought would come and wrap him in the inescapable embrace of her arms, and pull him under into the land of the dishonored dead. Into a land of pure shadow and depthless cold. A land where nothing matters, nothing is, nothing feels or hurts or does.

A place of nonexistence, which is where Loki belongs. It is where he wishes now to be.

But he can _feel_, and he cannot remember any journey from there to here. He cannot remember any path.

Only the panic of knowing death upon him, the desperate struggle for his magic, and the eventual release of yielding to his fate.

And then, only darkness.

Nothing else.

And there should have been something more.

Something _more_.

And as the most vicious and sudden of open palmed slaps, the sky above at once comes into focus, sunless and bleak as of permanent twilight, and the ground beneath him is hard and cold and somehow shifting as sand.

The air is frozen and choking in his lungs, and focus narrows onto a wash of drowning pain, his body racked and destroyed by it.

He curls in on himself, and then he rolls, and he sees the black wastes beneath him, and the pain rips through to his core, turning then to panic.

He pitches forward, a strangled, ragged gasp tearing from his throat as he scrambles across the sand on hands and knees, and he falls, crumpling to his elbows, crawling forward a small space more before bile is forcing its way, hot and burning, up from his roiling insides and into his throat.

He can't stop it, and it explodes out, past his lips, a broken gag following with it as his entire frame stiffens and convulses and shudders with the expulsion.

Again, he vomits, violent and sick, and it doesn't escape his eyes, that what he vomits is near pure blood.

And like water escaping through a sieve, what pitiful strength he'd used to move that small distance drains from him in rapid time, and he sinks down, limp and defeated, until his face is pressed to the earth, and he lies like a pig on his belly, helpless and exposed.

A thin groan slips past his lips, and his lids, heavy as stone, fall shut, a warm dampness at their corners.

He cannot move.

Only lie still, and let his face twist with the agony of being, with the pain which runs through him like a lance, and he lets his mind wonder why, why, _why _wasn't he _dead_!?

Oh, what it is to be so truly the failure that he cannot even succeed in ending his own miserable, worthless existence.

And like a wave, despair comes crashing down upon his head as an impossible weight, and he cannot keep the sound of it away, a single, brittle sob falling past his blood smeared teeth.

It is all he allows himself, before he lets seething rage consume him. Before he latches to it as a drowning man would the side of a skiff, and finds in it, as always he has, his escape from what it is to _be him_.

His hands reach and fingers dig with bruising, tearing pressure along the sides of his head, digging into locks of hair and_ ripping_.

And open his mouth falls, and from it does he _scream_.

Twisted and broken and cracked, and for any who's ears it falls upon, they would not think it a man, nor any kind of a god. Only some poor and dying animal caught in a trap of pure malice. Some wretched beast who cannot escape its own, awful state even by chewing through its flesh, through its fat and muscle and bone. Cannot escape even by tearing its own body free of its caught limb.

Loki screams, and then he lifts his face to the sunless, starless sky, and he cries out in words built and breathed in the most pure and incorruptible of hatreds.

"You thrice wicked and cruelest of trios!" He screams, voice pitched high and shattered. "You awful and cunning and kindles creatures who would dare to call yourselves Ladies! You, who's hateful fingers weave the fates of men and gods alike!" He forces himself to his knees, hands coming down and burying in the black sand, fingers curling through it and lifting, tossing it with all his strength across the barren land. "You leave me to _this_!? You _dare_!? You wretched, arrogant, _soulless pits_ who calls themselves the Norns! I damn you to your misery! I condemn you to the everlasting despair of knowing your own end and the knowledge of your powerlessness in it, of ever being able to alter its _course_!"

He waits, then. Half expecting, half _praying _that in this place of nothingness, where on his knees he sits, they will strike him down for his display of hubris and goading, insolent insults.

But the fates have never been so kind to Loki Liesmith. Loki of no place, son of no one.

Only his own voice echoes back at him from barren desolation.

It is only him here.

None else.

As ever…

He is alone.

/

It is his _magic_ which had kept him from Hela's arms.

His magic, which in his panic and fear he had thought was failing him. His magic, which, because Frigga's own hadn't saved her from near the same wound, he had believed it impossible for him to succeed where his Mother had failed.

He had forgotten his power.

Had let the belief's of others blind him to his own capacity. Again.

But his was the name linked as that of the most powerful sorcerer in Asgard, excepting that of the AllFather himself.

Frigga, Queen of the Aesir, may have taught him the foundations of controlling his seidr, but it had been long past since he had surpassed her in skill, low as others were to admit it. And low as he was to acknowledge himself her better in any way, even when she had praised him for just such, so very long ago.

He had forgotten his power, and not understood in his panic and fear its seeming refusal to his call had been instead his subconscious focus of it towards repairing the damage his body had suffered.

He understood this only when at last, after he had spent himself screaming at the heavens and cursing the existence of himself and the Norns alike, he had collapsed in exhaustion, and glimpsed the torn leather of his armor, and beneath it, the healing pink of an already forming scar where the Kursed monster had run him through, dried and flaking blood about it.

And he had laughed.

He had laughed until tears had streamed, free and unceasing down his dirtied cheeks. Until the pain of his mercilessly jostled, still tender wound had ached so viciously, he thought he would again throw up.

And to no one but the whistling wind did he whisper of how it was Loki who is truly Loki's worst enemy.

And then he had laughed again, and forced himself to bend down and wrap his arms about himself and _squeeze_ until his vision grew blurred with the agony, and his teeth had grit together. Until he could no longer tell if the tears down his face were those of ironic mirth deranged bitterness, or rather truly by nothing more than the physical torment of his self-abuse.

For oh, _now_, Thor would never forgive him, and Loki Liesmith, Loki of the Silvertongue, Loki the trickster and the Mischief maker, could never make him believe. Could never convince his older brother he had never meant for any of this, and that as the first time he had tried in desperate pain to end his life, this too had been in earnest. For though this time he hadn't meant to die…

He hadn't meant to not die either.

And Thor would think it some trick. Some betrayal. And what love he'd seen in his brother's eyes before the world had faded from his consciousness, he knew would harden and shrivel to nothing when his continued existence was found out.

Even that parting comfort, the promise of Thor's love, was to be denied him.

And Loki had torn his hair at the thought, and screamed, and laughed, and wasted what precious strength he had in unleashing wave after wave of pure magical energy onto the surrounding, faceless land, rending craters fifty feet deep and twenty or more wide.

And then, so suddenly, it was only then he consciously realized that Thor was gone.

That he had left, and taken the girl with him.

Left Loki _there_, all alone. Left his body to wash away with the sands and be forgotten, as he had been in his cell in Asgard.

Forgotten and unwanted, as he had been his whole life.

And a bitter rage had taken him then, and he had cursed Thor's name for the betrayal and unleashed stronger blasts still, destroying the land around him until it was nothing but a pockmarked ruin. Until that rage had bled to desperate despair, and he had felt the panic bubbling up inside his chest, his breaths beginning to come fast and shallow, like he couldn't ever get enough air. And his eyes had stung, sharp and painful, and he had begun walking, frantically, he stride quick and jerky as he had turned his head left to right, looking, looking, _looking_ as he cried out Thor's name, certain, _certain_ that he must be mistaken. That Thor would never abandon him. He would never leave him alone like that. He _wouldn't_, because he had _promised_. As children, Thor had promised, and Loki could still hear the words upon the air as he cried Thor's name.

"_I'll always be with you Loki_."

Thor was only hiding someplace. Had only sought shelter from the raging winds of Svartlheim, from the way it flung sand to sting in your eyes. He was hiding someplace, to protect the woman, for she was only mortal, and weak, and Loki smiled at the thought Thor would consider him strong enough to be alright out there, on his own, until the storm had passed.

Thor had always believed in his strength. And Mother. Even when no one else had.

And so he looked and looked, and he called Thor's name.

Because Thor _would not_ leave him here alone, even if he thought Loki was dead. Even if he thought so.

Only now, here he sits on his knees, surrounded by nothing but black wastes and a starless sky, and he knows Thor is gone. He couldn't find him.

Thor left, and he is alone.

It makes his throat hurt, and his heart pound in something too like terror, and so he forces his thoughts away from that. Away from all of that.

He knows, somehow, if he does not focus, he may be trapped forever in this place.

Trapped forever…

Left alone…

… _Am I cursed_?

_Left to die on a frozen rock_…

… _No_.

… _But _both_ of you were born to be Kings_.

_Your _birthright_… was to _die…

_What am I_…

… _You are my son_.

_You were _knee deep_ in Jotun blood, _why _would you take me_…

_You were an innocent child_…

_No, you took me for a purpose_…

… _If I had not taken you, you would not be here now to hate me_.

Hate, hate… _hate_!

And now Loki thinks of Odin.

He thinks of him, and inside, he feels himself go rigid with _hate_.

His hands curl until his fingernails bite into the flesh of his palms, his teeth hard together, and for a moment, he grows deaf with a consuming buzz, powerful in his ears, and he sees only black round the edges of his sight.

For a moment, he is bleak with desire for _revenge_.

For Odin to _pay_.

To pay for _all of this_. _All of this_ is _his fault_!

Because he only wanted for Odin to _see_… to see him, for once. To see _him_, see he could be just as good a son as Thor. Just as good. Just as strong. Just a noble and right.

He only tried to make Odin see, and he _wouldn't_. He wouldn't even _look_. And everything… _everything_ he ever told him, everything he ever said, ever promised and swore and claimed… it was nothing, _nothing_ but lies! For a thousand and more years, only LIES!

And how came _he _to be called Liesmith and trickster, when Odin's scheming exposed Loki's own as nothing more than mere child's play?

Or maybe it was only his own, pitiful desperation to believe he could ever be loved that blinded him to the AllFather's deceptions. He, who is said to possess the ability to see through any untruth, and yet he could not see it of his own, entire existence.

Could only sense something desperately wrong with him, and chose instead to believe the assurances of his parents than listen to the doubts in his own, confused mind.

Oh, but he _wishes_ for Odin to pay.

Only… he can't think how. He can't think _how_. Odin is so much more powerful, he knows this. He could never kill him, and he tells himself it is only through lack of power he cannot.

This he almost believes.

But still, he wishes him to pay, somehow.

And what now does Loki have to lose, he wonders. What more can he lose?

There is nothing, and so then, he thinks, might it not be a blessing, were he to end his life by attacking the AllFather directly?

If even he thought Odin held any care in his heart for his bastard, stolen son, would that not in itself too be a kind of revenge?

If Odin were to end his life by his own hand?

If he thought Odin held any care for him at all…

But he has nothing to lose, and so what difference does it make? He has no home anymore. No place anywhere. No family. No friends. Only enemies on all sides, who will hunt him down and add still further torture to his already miserable existence.

By clinging to this life, he has lost the one companion he might still have salvaged for himself in Thor, and lost his only place of refuge from the torments of the monsters out there great as he.

Oh, but…

Loki's eyes go wide with dawning thought. The excitement of possibility surging of its own volition, hot in his chest.

His body winds tight suddenly, a kind of nervous energy taking him, anxious and eager.

And slow, a smile spreads across his lips.

Oh, but if he could make this _work_, then…

Then still he might find for himself a kind of existence worth living.

Still he might save himself from the awful disappointment of the one being left who might at all care for him, who still held enough trust in him to give him any kind of chance, and have for himself a place of protection from any who would seek his further pain.

Perhaps, even… he might do better by Thor in this.

To be to him the Father he always wished for himself…

He could do this for them both, he thinks.

And in that, perhaps, to Mother he could make recompense. For in that, would she not be proud?

If he could do this for both himself, and Thor?


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

He tells his brother he is proud of him, and that is the truth.

He tells Thor this as he walks away from his home. From his position. From the throne, and the responsibility of a King.

He tells him this as he wears the face of Odin.

Because from Odin, the words for Thor will be true.

Because from himself, he knows Thor would never believe him at all.

"_I am being sincere_!"

"_You are _incapable_ of sincerity_!"

"… _Am I_?"

"Am I?" He whispers to himself long after Thor's footfalls have faded, and there is none left in the vast space of the throne room but him.

He tells Thor he is proud of him as he wears the face of Odin, and he thinks how it is only ever behind a lie he finds the courage to tell the truth.

But no one ever really understood that of him.

How all his truths were presented as lies, and all his lies as truths.

Perhaps then they all were right, to call him coward.

/

He sits upon the throne of Asgard, and he wears the face of a liar.

Before him stand traitors and oath breakers.

Before Odin, they have the decency to look shamed.

"You have committed treason of the highest order against your King and Sovereign, all of you." He says in the commanding voice of the AllFather, and before him, the Gatekeeper and the Shield-Maiden and her band of Warrior friends kneel upon one knee, and bend their faces to the ground in deference and in shame.

He frowns in the face of Odin.

"I could have you, each of you, stripped of your titles and your citizenship of this Realm, and cast out into exile for the rest of your days."

The gathered group says nothing, and keeps their necks bent, there fists clenched and laid across their hearts.

And Loki knows, were he to banish them now from Asgard and strip them of their ranks and titles and accomplishments, they would accept their fates without question, and make no moves to defy his decision.

He remembers standing before Heimdall on the Rainbow Bridge. Standing before him as his rightful King.

"_For your act of treason, I say you are _no longer_ citizen of Asgard, and I have use of your talents no longer_."

He remembers Heimdall renouncing his loyalty and drawing his sword up. Remembers him bringing the blade down upon his neck.

Remembers how the Gatekeeper who for Thor and his friends went twice against the word of his King, and who for Odin made effort to inform of his trespass and submit himself willingly to whatever punishment his crime called for, for him, for Loki, he drew his blade and tried without hesitation to take off his head.

He wonders now if his rank of Prince ever held any weight at all.

Or if that was just another lie.

For with even such a title to bolster his regard, regard was, for him, always little.

And he is too tired now to make them pay as they should have.

He waves a dismissive hand, turning his gaze from their forms.

"Eh…" he says, and the exhaustion in his voice is true. "go then."

The five of them look up, unable to keep the surprise from their faces.

"And when next you think of committing such acts against your King, think then on my mercy here this day, and make your decision from that."

They announce their gratitude then in effusive tones and words, again bowing their heads, and Loki is overcome with the desire to cut them all down where they kneel, and be rid of their treacherous faces.

Instead he only dismisses them, and leaves himself with his thoughts, alone in the echoing, empty space.

/

He finds a task for Sif and her faithful companions.

To her hands, he gives over the Aeither, and commands she take it from Asgard, and deliver it safely to the hands of another.

Separated by long lengths from the Tesseract. Separated, for as such, the two gems of Infinity cannot be brought together, and from Thanos, that power will be kept.

/

Loki is a dutiful King.

Ever has he had a head for the tedious nature and inner workings of politics and policy. Ever has he had the patience and grasp which Thor himself always lacked.

He attends every day his appointed meetings with advisors, and listens and speaks, and makes decisions, both of import and little consequence. And they are good decisions. They are solid, and well informed, and aimed always towards the health of the Realm. He implements policies only after they have been thoroughly considered.

And every day, after, he gives audience to Asgard's citizens, and presides as judge over whatever disputes have erupted between them. Feuds between land owners, and those who work the land. Quarrels between lovers, and rivalries between royal houses.

He sits, and he listens, and considers each side. And then he makes decisions to end their conflicts, and moves on to the next.

He receives dignitaries from the other Realms. Alfheim and Vaniheim and Nidavellier and Nornheim. Even Musplheim and Jotunheim. He hosts them, and works to improve and bolster relations between them and Asgard.

He is good at this.

He is good at policy. At the delicacy of balance in power. The fragility of negotiation and the drawing up of treaties agreeable to all, while strengthening the position of his own pe…

Of Asgard's people…

He is good at this.

And then he holds court.

He presides over courtiers, and the members of the various houses of Nobility, while they dine and gather and celebrate and dance.

He is not good at this.

He sits separated from them, and he is quiet.

And he does not miss the askance glances thrown his way. The wondering puzzlement over his behavior.

Where Odin commanded their respect and had their fear, where, whether he spoke or not, his presence was felt like an unceasing pressure against the chest, and bared down on all of them to overwhelm, and where Thor was the great light they flocked to, clung to and swore loyalty to by sheer force of his blinding charisma, who's every word they hung on and took heed of purely in deference to the love they held for him, Loki was ever as an unseen shadow, silent and unacknowledged.

And from this nature, he cannot escape now, even as he hides behind the face of the AllFather.

He finds himself falling into what he is, retreating from the light.

He is shy, and within himself.

His presence commands no attention. Commands no acknowledgement. No regard.

If not for the reputation of Odin AllFather and the respect he demanded, Loki thinks, all his talent, all his intelligence in lawmaking and political maneuvering and gifts for the handling of delicate relations, would be for naught. For no one would listen, if they did not think it was Odin they listened to.

And here is a bitter fruit to swallow.

It matters not how fine you are at laying the foundations of a thing. How deftly you are able to manipulate and coax and shape the intricate ends of what makes up a Kingdom. It matters not, if you do not also possess the ability to win the minds and hearts of that Kingdom's people.

And now Loki understands the importance of Thor upon the throne.

If even he acted as only a figurehead, he would have had the people's trust, and their admiration.

They would have followed him into anything, as they had followed Odin.

As they would never follow him.

/

It is well into the earliest morning hours, when the night is at its darkest, and Loki sits, alone, in the chambers belonging to those he once called Mother and Father.

He sits upon their bed, blankets tossed and discarded round his crossed legs, and he remembers his childhood.

Nights spent red faced and teary eyed as he woke violently from nightmares. And when Thor had grown too old to entertain his little brother's childish fears, he had taken to coming here, seeking out safety in the arms of his parents.

He remembers burying himself against the breast of his Mother, and clinging to her desperately as he sobbed without control. Clinging to her as though his very life were dependent upon not letting go.

And Frigga would hold him to her, and whisper soothing words against his ear, running her beautiful and delicate fingers through his sweat damped hair, shushing him and promising him it would be alright.

… Everything would be alright.

He remembers eavesdropping on them, and hearing between them bitter arguments.

Odin complaining agitatedly that she was coddling him too much. That he would grow soft from her overindulgences.

And Frigga countering, angry and with tears in her eyes that if she did not, who would?

"_Who else will show that boy love_?!" Her voice echoes back to him in the dark, and his eyes slip closed.

He didn't understand what any of that meant then.

He reaches down, long, fine boned fingers burying in the material of the covers, and he pulls them up and around him, over his shoulders. He pulls them tight and bunched across his thin chest, cocooning himself as his head bows low.

He is a Cuckoo in this place.

In this bed.

He does not belong here.

And companionship is found now only in loneliness.

Solitude is his best and oldest and only friend.

His lips stretch in a sickened smile at the thought.

Sometimes it is so heavy, he thinks he will begin to cry.

But he never can, and he thinks perhaps it is because he has forgotten how.

He lets himself sink down, head resting against the pillow, covers wrapped round himself too tight and warm.

"… Mother." He whispers into the darkness.

And there answers him back no one.

Only the empty, dead air of a place he never belonged.

/

It is in the chilled, early morning autumn of Asgard, standing upon the balcony of Odin's and Frigga's chambers and overlooking the city, bathed already in brilliant and blinding golden light, that Loki realizes it has been nigh on a year since Thor has left.

A year since last he had looked upon the face of and spoke to his brother.

There is something too like longing which blooms then, suddenly, in his chest, and his face twists in a scowl as he tells himself he does not miss him.

As he told himself unendingly when he rotted away in the cells below this palace, and none came to see him ever.

When only he was allowed the illusion of his Mother's presence.

And that, too, he squandered.

Viciously, he tears his thoughts from that.

Only, inevitably, inexorably, his thoughts come back to Thor, and he realizes, again, the weight of his absence on him.

Loki hides away.

He hides away, and he sees no one, speaks to no one outside his advisors and dignitaries, and to settle disputes between strangers.

It was only ever Thor capable of bringing him out into the light.

Only Thor who's presence afforded him any kind of social life at all. For the interest shown in him was only ever born from a regard for the elder Prince.

None ever sought his friendship alone.

And Loki knows not how to build such things without Thor.

… Does not find himself able to now even desire such without him.

He turns from the city, from its golden, shining spires, and retreats back inside.

Back into the dark.

Back into where he belongs…

/

It is months more which pass, and Asgard, under his stead, is as unchanging as ever.

Under his leadership, it remains atop the Nine Realms and in its place of power.

Under his hand, the Aesir continue to thrive and live well.

It is months more which pass, and Loki is suffocating in his isolation.

He reads, and he sleeps, and he leads.

He does nothing more. He barely eats even.

If any have noticed Odin's strange behavior, they have not made mention of it to his face.

And lately, Loki is consumed by memories of the past.

Of quests taken with Thor, and his band of idiot friends.

And of how he had suffered under those friends taunts and unspoken derision. Under their hate filled glances.

Thor had accused him once of imagining those things. But Loki knows it was no affect of imagining.

They had hated him, Sif and the Warriors Three. Or, in the least, they had thought him too strange to like, and in their exclusion of him from their jests and games and companionship did that dislike take form.

They did not _want _him. Tolerated his presence only for Thor's insistence that he be brought along.

It was more often than he cared to recall, he had overheard them when they thought him not near, laughing and talking of his incompetence and the burden he placed upon them and their goals, simply by being there.

Only Sif had never laughed with them, but her disdainful glances his way told him enough she shared their views.

But even still, with that, _even still_…

He had had _Thor_.

Thor alone had wanted him, and that alone had been enough.

That alone had been everything he needed, then. And the memories now of moments spent with his brother, he thinks, outweigh the memories of the others.

Sitting awake with Thor, so late into the night, after all the rest of them had fallen asleep.

How, sometimes, they would fall into such deep conversation together, they would forget the hours, and not notice their passing until the sun had begun its break over the horizon. How, times other, they would simply sit in each other's company, comfortable in a near meditative silence.

He remembers, now, how it was always him the others would order sent off to gather kindling for the fire, and how, sometimes, Thor would catch up to him and grab him by the shoulder. And Loki would turn and see him standing there, smiling, and asking if he could come along, as though there would ever be any chance Loki would not want him there.

And when they would go hunting, he remembers Thor so often insisting Sif and the Warriors form their own party, because, he would say, he was taking Loki, and they would be fine on their own. And the others had often complained aloud and offered their protests. Often, they would say, they would argue of how Loki would only slow them down, would likely prevent them even from making any kill of any sort. They would attempt to persuade Thor through the tossing around of threats, laughing as they went on about how the Crown Prince would be robbing himself of the glory and honor of the hunt by allowing his younger, weaker sibling to come along and weigh him down. They would tell Thor he should leave him, and Thor would only laugh, and repeat himself, insisting they split apart, because he was _taking Loki hunting_.

And Loki remembers trying so hard, because he _wanted to prove them wrong_, and he wanted… he wanted to show Thor he had made the right decision.

He wanted not to give Thor reason to ever believe their words.

To ever leave him behind.

And, after a time, Loki became a good hunter.

He smiles.

Better than good, in truth of fact.

Only Hogan had ever been comparable to him where it came to the art of tracking.

And, after a time, Thor's friends had no longer excuse to protest his inclusion, though still they resented his presence.

Thor's faith in him had won him that. A kind of respect for his abilities in the wilderness, grudging though it may have been.

It is in these memories of the past, Loki again finds himself longing.

He wants to see Thor, he realizes.

He wants that with a sudden desperation which is, to him, alarming. And he feels a kind of sinking dismay as he remembers, then, if he wishes at all to retain his brother's faith in him, if he wishes at all to preserve the somewhat redeemed image he left to Thor, he can never see him again.

Loki cannot.

Odin, though, has no such restrictions.

And so, it is in memories of the past, Loki decides he will go to Midgard.

He will find Thor, and his Lady, and he will see them.

Even if he must go wearing this false face, still, for a time anyway, he can give himself this.

And that will be more than he has had.

/

**AN: So, a huge thank you to all my readers and reviewers, as always! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I promise, eventually, we will find out what happened to Odin.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4:**

To Heimdall he says he is venturing forth to Midgard, to see his son. And Heimdall only bends his head in compliance.

Loki nearly wants to laugh.

The great Gatekeeper, appointed guardian to the Realm Eternal, the most powerful of all Realms, loyal servant to Asgard and her King, and himself one of the most powerful of all Aesir, and yet he cannot see the false King as he stands beneath his very nose and looks him unflinching in his supposedly all-seeing eyes.

Almost… almost, Loki wishes he would.

Wishes Heimdall would see him as he truly is, and draw his mighty sword from its sheath, and lop off his head then and there.

End this…

End this all…

But Heimdall does not see, and Loki tells him in Odin's voice that if he is needed back on Asgard, to call him back with haste. And once more, Heimall bows his head in understanding.

And then he is activating the Bifrost, and it is scarce moments later, Loki finds himself standing upon the street of the Midgardian country known as Great Britain, within a city so called London.

It is grey and dismal, the air heavy with moisture, and where he stands, the surrounding area seems abandoned, devoid of another soul.

And that is well, Loki thinks. He does not desire attention of any sort now.

He cloaks himself from Heimdall's sight, and conjures over the form he wears a formal, well-cut suit of modern Midgardian make, before he begins walking, towards the city's center, where he knows his brother to reside, in the small apartment of his Lady's home.

/

He dislikes this world.

He has definitively decided thus, just now, as he makes his way down the bustling walkways of this ridiculously overcrowded and _loud _civilization.

It is painful to his ears, and on several occasions in just the last few minutes, he has flinched violently at some unexpected sound, assaulting him it seems from all sides, throbbing relentlessly against his temples.

At moments, Loki is overcome with the desire to run from the place and hide away somewhere, some place quiet and dark and lost.

Some place he cannot be found.

… Cannot be hurt.

It is an absurd notion.

These mortals are pathetically weak.

They pose no threat to him in the least.

And yet there are so _many_ of them, surging and pulsing around him like ants.

And the air here is thick with noxious, cloying fumes, and their metal boxes line and congest the roadways near front to back, sputtering, and spilling billowing black clouds of gases, polluting the air further. His eyes sting against it, and he feels less than sturdy as he continues on.

And he can hear them, the humans, and their mindless, droning conversations between one another. He can pick out their words, each of them as he passes them by, pick out the individual tones of their multitude of voices. Can hear them _eating _as he walks by taverns and establishments serving meals, their jowls mashing and masticating sickeningly as they shovel food into their mouths, past their gnawing teeth.

He avoids touching them, even as it seems they try their best to run straight into him, with their uncoordinated and clumsy movements.

He does not doubt were he to stop his careful maneuvering about them, they would fall flat on their bottoms upon making contact.

For they are insubstantial and small. Weightless and without roots.

There is nothing of the cosmos in them. They are not touched by the energy of the World Tree as all the other sentient beings of the Nine are.

He wonders why he ever thought it a good idea, to take these beings under his stead and rule them. He wonders how he ever convinced himself it was something he even remotely wanted.

He sees so many of them, holding small, shiny objects in their hands, their faces bent and focused on the things, fingers moving rapidly across their surfaces, and they do not even watch where they step. Others have the shiny objects pressed to their ears, and they are talking aloud, as though to another person, and Loki feels decidedly uneasy at it.

He recalls, vaguely, seeing people with such things when last he was on this Realm. Recalls Barton using them, and at his inquiry, explaining to him it was some manner of communication device.

Loki does not remember entirely.

He does not really care.

Everything here is so base and primitive. They build machines to accomplish for them what the life energy around them should manage, if they had any ability at all to manipulate it.

But it is ridiculous to think they could ever manage such, when they are not even _aware _of its existence.

And the architecture is plainly ugly. Square boxes, formed together, row after row along some rigid, grid design.

It was the same in that other city he was in. New York, it was called. Only the buildings there were very much taller. Still, the designs remained identical, and Loki can only ponder disdainfully at the human's utter lack of imagination. Everything is a variation on the same concept. Nothing truly differs. Truly innovates.

He wishes now to be away from here. Away from these mortals, from their noise, and the pressing heat of their bodies. Away from the stink of their polluted air of chemicals and waste.

He wishes to be _away_.

And so, impulsively, he reaches out, and pulls the shadows round himself, caring not how he startles the humans.

He steps from the street, into the places between.

/

He stands before the flimsy, wooden door, waiting, and he wonders, at its smallness, how Thor could even fit through such a space.

Wonders how Thor, grand, golden, great Thor, could ever be contented, resigning himself to such muddiness. To something so pitiful and inconsequential, when before he had at the tips of his fingers the power of the universe, the power of Odin, only waiting to be taken into his hands.

The Thor he knew would never have given that up.

The Thor he knew would never have chosen this.

The Thor he knew was arrogant and selfish and dangerously prideful.

The Thor he knew is gone, in his place, a man of hard earned wisdom and unshakable principle.

The man Loki had for so long wished his brother could be, would _learn_ to be.

A man Loki feels pride in, for his ability to change when Loki thought he never would.

For an ability to change, which Loki knows for himself, he will likely never possess.

He will not even deign to pretend it not painful, that it would be a mortal girl, tiny and inconsequential in the scheme of the cosmos, a girl whom Thor had known for the span of three days and two nights, that it would be_ her _that could affect this change in his brother, when for centuries… _centuries_, Loki had tried and tried and failed and failed again.

He thinks it a testament to his own, losing nature, to his sorry and purposeless existence, that even in filling the role of he who should have had Thor's greatest confidence and trust, he who had thought himself Thor's best friend, and who had thought Thor his best and only, could fail at something so simple as making him _listen_.

His eyes slip closed, and he breathes in.

Viciously he presses down the emotions.

It will not do, to greet Thor in such a state. It will not do, lest he give himself away and destroy everything.

He lifts his hand in a fist, held motionless a moment, hovering.

He waits.

Hesitates.

Coward echoes, cold and mocking in his head.

And he brings his fist down on the flimsy wood, once, twice.

He waits.

There are footfalls approaching from the other side, too light, he knows, to be Thor's, and for a moment, Loki feels his heart clench in something too like fear, and the desire to forget the thing entirely and simply leave then and there nearly makes him move from the spot.

But he holds himself, and waits, forcing his form to relax, exhaling loudly and falling still just as he hears the doors latch being undone, and then the lock, and a moment later, it is pulled open, and he is staring down at Jane Foster.

She does not even try to hide the shock from her face, her mouth hung agape as she stares, wide eyed back up at him.

She is speechless.

And so he makes the first move. He bows his head to her, only just, because Odin is the All-Father, and he shows deference to none. He does not smile, for Loki scares recalls a time when ever he saw the All-Father do so.

"Jane Foster." He says in Odin's voice, and he straightens fully, tall and broad and strong, as he knows his true form is not. "I have come to see my son."

/

Thor greets him by taking to one knee and bowing his head, fist across his heart.

It does not look right to Loki.

"Father." He says, lifting his eyes to him. And Loki nods, summoning him to his feet.

Thor stands, and suddenly, powerfully, Loki wishes he would pull him into his arms and crush him in an embrace, as he used to do.

He wants to hold on to Thor. He wants to bury his face against his broad shoulder and feel safe in the solidity of his big brother, wants to hide away from the world and know that nothing will ever harm him, because Thor would not let it. Thor would never…

But then he remembers himself. Remembers Odin, who has never been one to show outward, physical affection. And he keeps himself planted and still.

He can see the confusion in Thor's eyes at his presence.

Loki had feared this. It is not like Odin at all, to leave his station as Asgard's King for anything other than matters of utmost urgency.

He lifts his chin, and assumes a pose of authority.

Loki remembers, as a child, watching Odin constantly, for hours, both while in his presence, and from the shadows, hiding behind pillars and tapestries and curtains. Watching the All-Father, and studying how he comported himself. How he held himself, and spoke to others and everything in between.

Remembers how, afterwards, he would run away to his rooms and stand before a looking glass, and practice behaving just like Odin. Just like Father…

He wanted so much to be just like him…

"How fares thee?" He asks of Thor.

Still, the question remains in the elder god's eyes, but he will not show disrespect to his King, and so he nods, and answers.

"Well enough." He says, uncharacteristically vague. "And you? How fares Asgard?"

Loki is aware of Jane Foster, lingering off to the side, small and fidgeting in her nervousness. He can see her, periodically looking up from her gaze on the floor, letting her eyes flit between him and Thor, and then back to the ground again.

He wishes she would go away.

"Asgard is as it always is." Loki replies, voice clipped and un-emotive. "Unchanging and powerful. And as for me, I remain her King."

The lie tastes foul on his tongue, and he isn't sure why.

Thor is haggard looking. He looks tired, in a way Loki cannot recall him ever seeming, and something in him unsettles at the sight.

He wonders if the mortal woman Thor has chosen as his mate sees it at all.

For the change is subtle. But to one who has known the thunderer for over a thousand years, to one who was once his shadow, it is loud as the sun is bright.

/

Days pass, and for them, Loki remains in their shared apartment.

Thor had again shown surprised puzzlement when he announced his plans to spend some days with them, as their guest, though he hadn't outwardly questioned it.

They put him in a tiny room, down the hall from their own.

Loki has overheard them speaking at night, in hushed tones. Has heard Thor expressing his bafflement at his Father's behavior. How unusual it is.

Loki is pressing his luck, he knows.

He knows he will have to leave here soon, and resume his duties in Asgard, or he will be found out, and there will be nothing left.

He wonders to himself if he could call what he has anything at all.

Both Thor and his Lady seem uncertain around him. Stiff and careful, in a way Loki has rarely known Thor to ever be.

Loki himself does not know how to respond to it. He finds himself stiff in return, and their conversations consist of little more than mindless pleasantries and idle chatter.

And so into his second night spent there, he is surprised when Thor comes to seek him out in his tiny room.

When Thor speaks to him about his little brother, and cries openly about the loss of him. About regret and guilt, and Loki has to turn away, hands clenching to fists in his lap when Thor sobs, choking out words of self-blame and self-loathing.

He tells Thor it isn't his fault, and he means it.

He doesn't know when he came to realize the foolery of blaming Thor for any of this, when it was always Thor, so many times _only_ Thor, who showed him love, and offered him companionship.

When it was so many times Thor who gave freely those things to him when none else would.

Only Mother… only ever her that gave them too.

Loki cannot look at Thor when he says this, when he confesses to Thor he always knew of his kindness and love.

He can only confess it while he hides behind this false face.

And he feels the truths strangle in his throat as he swallows them down.

That to be Loki is to destroy the things he loves.

As he destroyed Frigga with his bitter rage and loneliness.

As he has destroyed Thor with his cowardice.

/

Loki cannot sleep in this little place.

He could not sleep in Asgard either.

He wonders if he shall ever sleep well again.

He thinks not. He cannot remember when last he did.

It has been so many years.

He sits upright in the small bed, pillow held in his arms, pressed to his chest as he stares into nothing.

He thinks of Thor in the room down the hall, holding the mortal woman. Finding comfort in her.

Jealousy bubbles in his chest, hot and oppressing, and he grits his teeth and bows his head.

His eyes clamp hard against the sting in them, and not for the first time, he wishes he had never woken that day on Svartlheim.

Not for the first time, he wishes he had never woken at all.

/

When the morning comes, Loki starts awake violently.

He thrashes, kicking viciously at the covers and tossing them from him, and a strangled gasp rips past his lips as the pain rockets up from his insides.

For a moment, blind panic takes him. For a moment, he thinks he is in Svartlheim. That he has just been run clean through by a blade two feet long, and he is dying. He is _dying_!

He rolls, falling out of the bed, crashing against the flimsy nightstand and taking it down with him, another, harsh gasp escaping his throat as he clutches at his chest.

Seconds pass, and his head begins to clear, though the pain still throbs and aches relentlessly.

Phantom pains.

He has suffered them ever since that beast had so injured him. Always they strike without warning or expectation. Always they are overwhelming in their awfulness.

Loki can feel sweat beading thickly on his brow, his breaths coming ragged and brokenly, wheezing out in a sickly sound.

For several seconds longer, the pain continues to radiate powerfully, and Loki's eyes squeeze shut against it, praying to the Norns to please let it pass.

And finally, it begins to ebb away, slowly.

He is on his knees, still clutching at his chest, breathing harshly and open mouthed.

He barely registers the sound of the door being opened.

By then, it is too late.

"Father, I heard a crash. Are you alri…"

Thor stops, and Loki looks up at him.

He looks up at him, and he knows…

He knows Thor sees him.

When he looks down at his hands, they are his own hands.

Long and thin and pale and young.

"Loki?" He hears Thor breath his name.

Loki closes his eyes, and waits for the world to crash down upon him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

Thor has always been deceptively fast.

Not as fast as Loki. But close enough that, with his strength, it so usually didn't matter at all.

And Loki has barely made it to his feet, barely opened his mouth with some half-hearted excuse ready on his tongue, before Thor is upon him.

His fist slams with breaking force against Loki's face, and Loki crumples like he is made from sticks.

Thor has ever been so much stronger than he. Even had he time to brace against the blow, he would have fallen just the same.

He does not even try to get out of the way as Thor reaches down and drags him back up by the collar of his shirt.

He cannot help the startled cry as he is slammed back against the wall, and a moment later, his eyes come open to find Thor's face inches from his own, twisted in such rage as Loki has never seen directed at him.

And for a moment, Loki is afraid.

For a moment, he is reminded of being a boy, and Thor, his older, bigger, stronger brother, who's anger could be as great as his joy, angry at _him_, and Loki would always be so scared then.

Loki would run away and hide, and scream so loudly when Thor would find him, scream as though he were being murdered, until Frigga would come running and pull Thor away.

He does not scream now as Thor, his rage rendering him beyond words, roars in his face, teeth bared like some crazed wild animal, and tears him from the wall, twisting him round with vicious strength and throwing him across the space.

Loki's shoulder catches, hard, against the frame of the door, taking a chunk of it with him, and he goes tumbling halfway out into the hallway, a crumpled heap on the floor.

A pained moan slips past his lips as, for a moment, he struggles to sit up. His head is spinning, a loud ringing in his ears.

Over that, he can hear the approaching, heavy steps of his brother, and distantly, Loki thinks, he _could_ defend himself. He could blast Thor away from him with a beam of magic, and step away from this place, to safety.

He could do all this rather easily, he thinks.

Only…

Only, he thinks he doesn't deserve to.

And then Thor is on him again, his thick, powerful fingers burying into Loki's shirt and lifting him like a doll.

He drags him by the collar of his shirt, down the hallway, and into the other room, and then he is picking him up bodily once more, and throwing him violently across the space.

Loki crashes, back first, against a squat glass table which sits in front on one of those moving picture boxes, and the thing shatters beneath the impact, glass shards flying up around him.

He gasps, eyes wide a moment with the pain. And then he is rolling over, struggling pathetically to get to his knees again and…

And do what?

He is in trouble. He knows he is.

When Thor is like this…

This is how Loki remembers him.

Thor, who in battle would so often become blind and deaf with the lust to kill, and whose emotions dictated to him above all. Who could not be reasoned with when thusly enraged.

"You lying BASTARD!"

And Thor has him again, tearing him up off the floor, lifting him fully until his feet are no longer on the ground, and once more, he slams the smaller god back against a wall, so hard this time, Loki's head snaps back against it, and the world spins faster.

Instinctively, his hands reach up, pathetically thin and weak compared to Thor's as they grasp uselessly around the thunderer's absurdly thick wrists.

"Thor, please…" Loki says, voice strained and odd to his own ears. "Listen,"

But Thor isn't listening. He doesn't hear him. He only tears Loki again from the wall and slams him against it a time more, hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs.

"You let me think you DEAD!" He rages. "You let me think I LET YOU DIE!"

Loki struggles to draw air back into him, trying to speak.

"You don't…" he sputters, gasping. "you don't underst..."

"I have mourned for you _twice now_!" Thor cuts him off, voice making the walls tremble in its volume. "And twice you have pretended your own death! You use my love for you against me like a weapon! You treat it as nothing more than a tool! A joke!"

"Thor, please…" Loki tries once more, vainly.

"And now you come here! WHY?" Thor again disrupts his plea. "To laugh in my face?! To make mock of me!? I will not have it any longer Loki! I will not let you…"

"I DID NOT INTEND THIS!"

The words rip from Loki unbidden, his voice pitched high and broken and ruined.

And Thor stops, staring back at him in wide eyed shock.

Loki blinks.

His eyes sting.

They hurt.

And a moment later, he feels something warm and wet, trailing down his cheeks, and he looks away, hands still wrapped loosely round Thor's wrists, his body hanging limply in his hold.

"… I did not intend this." He says again, voice barely more than a whisper now. "I did not intend this. Please…"

He cannot look at Thor now.

He doesn't want to see what's there.

He is too much the coward.

"I did not intend any of this…"

"Oh my God..." off somewhere, he hears Jane Foster's voice, thick with horror. "Thor… what…?"

Slowly, Loki feels Thor's fingers loosening their grip in his shirt, until he lets go completely, and Loki collapses to his knees, falling forward onto his hands.

His arms are shaking, and he cannot look up at Thor. He cannot.

"I'm sorry." He says, and his voice shakes too. "I'm sorry. I didn't…"

"I care _not_." Thor says, and his voice is so cold. So devoid of the warmth it once carried when he spoke to his little brother.

And now Loki does look up at him, and his vision is blurred, he cannot see well.

"I did not…" he tries, but his tongue feels too heavy in his mouth. It will not spin words sweetly for him as usually it does so easily. "It was not false. I did not pre… pretend to die. I did not. Thor, you must believe me. I thought myself dying. I thought myself finished and…"

Thor scowls down at him, the expression ugly on his face.

"You expect me to believe you?" He asks, incredulous. "You expect me to believe _any _words which come from your serpents tongue now?"

And Loki falls silent. He stills, staring up at Thor.

Words flee him entirely.

He does not know how to argue this.

"You take me for a greater fool than I am Loki." Thor says. "You always have. And maybe, at one time, I was. To trust you so blindly, I was. But I am no fool now, and I will not be played as such. You have deceived me for the last time. I do not want to see you again."

Loki cannot stop the wave of grief which washes through him and manifests so nakedly upon his face. He feels his features twist with it, brow lining deep and mouth curving into a wretched frown.

Tears build, thick and awful in his eyes, and before he even knows what he is doing, his hands are wrapped round Thor's legs, and he is looking up at his brother with unmitigated desperation.

"Thor, please!" He cries, voice thick and choked. "_Please _listen to me! I kept this from you for fear you would react as you have. I did not know how to… to… I did not know how to make you understand. I woke alone on Svartlfheim. My… my magic, it had healed me while I was unconscious, and… but I thought I lay dying as you did. I was _sincere_!"

"YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF SINCERITY LOKI!" Thor roars suddenly. Outside, rain comes down in heavy sheets against the windowpanes and thunder crackles ominously.

Loki falls silent, mouth clicking shut.

"I want you away from here Loki. Away from _me_!" Thor goes on, voice heated with his rage. "Go now, before I think better of it and drag you back to Asgard to be locked away in the dungeons for the rest of your life."

Loki crumples.

For a moment, he feels as if he cannot breathe, and he lifts a fist to his mouth, biting down hard on it to stop the broken sob he can feel forcing its way up.

No… no…

This cannot be.

This cannot…

Everything he so feared…

Everything wrong…

Everything he touches is wrong, _wrong_! Everything he goes near left in _ruins_!

Why can he not… why can he not do _right_!? What is wrong with him that he cannot _do right_?

"_Am I cursed_?"

And Odin answers back "_No_."

Odin, the only deceiver greater than he.

He wants to tell Thor he is sorry. He wants to tell him. But what use will it do now?

He will not be believed.

And when Thor finds out what he's done with Odin…

Oh, already, Thor no longer sees him as brother.

And Loki can think Thor will seek him out then only to end his days.

And perhaps that will be for the best. Yes, Loki thinks, that would indeed be for the best.

He chokes out the words to set the course in motion.

"Odin is trapped and alone on Svartlfheim, cloaked from Heimdall's gaze. You will find him living but weakened, unable to take his sleep as he surely has been."

And then Loki is gone, swallowed up in a cloud of green and black smoke, the faint glow of gold trailing after its wake.

/

Where he lands, he tears to shreds.

Some sort of vast, open space, the strangely soft stone-like substance the mortals use to construct their walkways spread out in a stretching, squared flat, dotted only by large, rectangular metal boxes, stacked together, one after another in rows upon rows.

It is ugly, like everything the humans create, and Loki gives no hesitant thought to its upheaval, tearing the ground and metal boxes asunder, as would a storm of elemental power, both with bare hands and blades of pure magical energy.

He rends metal and concrete alike, until there is naught left but shredded ribbons of metal and crushed slabs of dusty stone. Until the place is a ruin; a land of waste.

By the end, his breaths come labored and fast, and he crashes to his knees, eyes hot and stinging, teeth clenched with the tension and pain his violent outburst failed to alleviate him from.

He sits there, and he holds his head in his hands, and he doesn't know anymore. He doesn't know what he's supposed to feel. What he's feeling at all.

He doesn't understand.

He thinks of Thor.

Fury and hate and distrust in his lightening eyes, handsome, perfect face contorted in rage and disgust.

He thinks of Thor, and the ruin his words have wrought, his every, thoughtless action devastating without him even knowing.

An interruption, speaking over him as he tries to talk them past Heimdall. Dismissing his attempts before all of his friends, and humiliation burns deep and awful from his core, face flushed and the powerful wish to vanish to nowhere.

And "know your place, brother", and that place is below. That place is beneath, and in the shadow of. Hidden away like some sick, shameful secret. That place is not equal, not on par. That place is without the same standing, the same regard, the same respect or _worthiness_.

Not _worthy_, for all the times he tried to lift Mjolnir, and never would she answer his call, though he knew alone… alone, Odin had the power to grant such.

Odin never deemed him worthy.

He thinks of Mother.

He thinks of her there, sat across from him, and he hears her voice when he asks what hope there is for Thor, when inside, he is dying, because nothing about him is real, nothing he ever believed in or trusted or thought is _real_, and Frigga speaks of _Thor_, she _thinks of Thor_, not him, and she tells him there is a reason for everything Odin does.

And Loki remembers the crushing weight of being alone. Of feeling alone. More alone than ever he had.

He remembers having no words for that, and standing. Remembers moving away, wanting to be away, from Mother, from Father. Wanting to hide away, to the only places still safe. The library. No one ever came to the library. No one ever sought him there. To his rooms. Only Thor would have… and Thor had been gone.

He wanted to be away some place, wanted to bury his face in his arms and cry. Wanted Frigga not to see, because in it there was shame, and no longer could he trust… no longer could he trust _her_.

But then there had been hope.

Wretched, _evil_ hope.

When to him had been handed Gungnir, and to his Mother he had turned, and she had told him he was King, she had told him to _make Father proud_.

And for but a brief moment, Loki had believed, he had allowed himself hope, allowed himself to dream he might make them see _him_ for once, not Thor, Thor, _THOR_.

He had _believed_, only then there Thor had been, in the moment when Loki had thought himself proven, and to him, Frigga had run.

To _him_, and such a cold had come over Loki.

Such wicked, hated cold, and for the dashing of his hope, did his loneliness weigh infinitely more.

He wonders then why ever he allowed himself to hope again, and he sits there, and he does not know what to do.

/

**AN: So, a lot of you have probably heard that the final scene in "Thor: The Dark World" was a scene added much later in the post-production, and thusly it can be concluded that Loki's death in the film was originally intended to be real. I've also read today that Tom Hiddleston played that scene believing Loki to actually be dying. Basically, what that means is that every moment in his death scene was done sincerely, which I'm just loving because it gives my particular interpretation here all the validity in the world.**

**Let's hope they release a directors cut of the film, or that there's deleted scenes included on the DVD and Blu-Ray.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

_Across from him, Thor watches his little brother._

_Under the dark of night, with only the stars overhead, Loki sits away from the fire, silent as he widdles deftly at a piece of wood, held between long, thin, and nimble fingers._

_Thor wonders, as he watches the wood begin to take shape in the form of a falcon, how it is his brother is not cold, sat so far from the warmth of the flames as he is, the air around them chilled with the breeze._

_And with the golden light of it, reflected off of Loki's pale, white skin, he looks almost ethereal, Thor thinks, and not for the first time in their long lives together, the thunder god is struck by how _different_ his brother truly is._

_Physically, indeed, the differences manifest obvious. Where the other men of the Aesir boast broad, handsome and strong features, Thor himself being no real exception, Loki's features are fine boned and delicate, sharp and almost fragile seeming. As Loki's entire form seems._

_He is so much more slightly built than those among his peers. Tall, taller than most, in truth, but where the other Aesir are defined by a kind of thickness, broad and powerful and muscular, Loki is, Thor sometimes thinks, almost painfully thin, almost waifish. Only Thor knows the folly in such assumptions as deciding another's strength based on appearance._

_He has grappled with Loki countless of times, and he has felt the physical power behind those thin, corded muscles. Loki has not his physical strength, no, but nor is he some weakling. And, despite what others, and even himself sometimes tease Loki over, Thor knows his little brother to be as finely skilled and deadly a warrior as any among them._

_With the immensity of his mind, and the power of his magic, he is not to be underestimated, not trifled with._

_And yet, it is in his mind, in his very manner and nature that Loki's true difference takes shape._

_He is _quiet_._

_It seems inherently their people are a people of grand gestures and boldly stated proclamations. Everything done is done loudly and forthrightly._

_But there is Loki, who is all silence and shadows and trickery. And ever has he spoken sparsely, and softly, so that when he does speak, the eloquence of his words strikes all the more finely._

_Thor realizes then that Loki has not spoken a single word since nigh the beginning of their journey, some several hours before, though Thor has talked near ceaselessly, and his brother has simply listened._

_As always he does._

_Always has it been Loki and Loki alone who Thor knows he may speak freely to._

_Always has it been Loki who he knows will understand._

"_Are you not cold brother, sitting away from the fire as you are?" Thor asks then, and Loki looks up at him, and he smiles at Thor. A tight, reserved smile, as so lately they are._

_Sometimes, Loki still smiles broad, but it seems these days less and less. Rarer still when Thor hears him laugh._

_He shakes his head, and then looks down again, continuing to carve the wood._

_Thor sighs softly, studying his thick fingered hands._

"_You have said naught but the sparest words since the days start." He points out._

"_Hmm." Loki replies without looking up. "I suppose."_

"_Are you feeling hale?" Thor presses, frustration mounting the smallest bit._

_At this, Loki's hands at last still in their work, and a moment later, he looks up, peering at Thor._

_He studies him for a long, few seconds, and Thor struggles not to fidget under the scrutiny of his little brother's gaze._

_Always has it been thus with Loki, and ever has it confounded Thor. That as the younger of them, Loki should still be capable of making Thor feel so young himself, when he would look upon him with eyes that knew too much, understood too much for one just barely into maturity. _

_Even as a child, did Loki's eyes seem old._

"_Does the silence discomfit you so, brother?" Loki finally asks, and Thor cannot tell if the mischief god is teasing or asking in earnest._

"_No," Thor denies, sounding petulant. "no, it is only…"_

_Loki's soft chuckling interrupts, and Thor looks up, seeing his brother smiling fully at him now._

"_Tiss not you alone, Thor, who finds the quiet unsettling." He says. "For in quiet, indeed, are we not reminded of our own smallness? And does it not send the mind to thinking, when distraction from thought is absent?"_

_Thor furrows his brow, frowning, and Loki laughs again, bowing his head slightly to his older brother._

"_But therein lies the value of the quiet." He goes on. "Tiss advantageous to the birth of thought. Thought then leads to action. Action to result. It be not always an unseemly thing, brother, to have for yourself and the world around you _some_ examination."_

"_I know that." Thor says, huffing slightly, agitated with how his brother's words make his head spin._

_But Loki only smiles still, eyes glinting in the dark._

_He looks so young, Thor thinks, and yet as his eyes show age beyond his actual years, so too do his words speak a wisdom beyond his experience._

_Loki is, Thor thinks, the most intelligent man he knows. Their Father, of course, is all knowing and ever wise. But Loki… Loki births thought and solves puzzles more swiftly than any other. He sees well past the surface and always to the heart of a thing._

_Gradually, the smile fades from Loki's lips, and at last, his eyes shift away from Thor, to the ground beneath their feet._

"_Take heart, brother mine." He says so softly, Thor barely can make out the words. "It seems I have this affect on many. You hardly find yourself alone."_

_Thor frowns deeply, hearing the downcast turn of the younger god's voice._

"_Loki…" he begins, unsure._

"_No, you are right." Loki interrupts him suddenly. "I have been remiss in the value of my company. Tell me of yourself, and lately how you fare."_

_Thor blinks, thrown slightly by the sudden shift in conversation._

"_I…" he begins dumbly._

"_Have lately any fair maidens caught your eye?" Loki again speaks over him, eyes lifting to hold his gaze._

_And with that, thoughts of the young woman he had most recently bedded fill his mind, and a broad smile washes over his features, forgetting in an instant his little brother's strange reserve and what, for a moment, seemed melancholy. _

"_Well, yes." He replies, grinning. _

"_Indeed." Loki smiles in return now, nodding. "Tell me of her."_

_And so Thor does. He describes vividly and with enthusiasm the night last he spent with the girl, and Loki listens, nodding silently to communicate his understanding, saying little in return._

_For a long while, it goes thusly, until the wood burning within the fire begins to dwindle to ash, and the flames lick low, light and warmth lost._

_Loki eventually nods towards it._

"_I should gather more kindle to replenish the fire." He says, and then begins to stand._

"_Do you wish me to accompany you?" Thor asks, looking up at him. _

_Loki shakes his head no._

"_I will be but a short time." He assures._

_Thor nods, returning his gaze to the shrinking flames._

_He does not at first notice, as the seconds pass, Loki still standing there, before him, and when finally it occurs to him the oddity of it, he looks back up, and sees his brother stone still, gazing out into the trees beyond, eyes wide and vibrating with alertness._

"_Loki?" He asks, uncertain._

_What happens then can only be described as an explosion of sudden, unexpected violence._

_At once, there appears a throwing knife in Loki's left hand, conjured from nothing it seems, and then he is turning, twisting in a full rotation, letting the thing fly as he comes back around, wickedly fast and accurate, as Loki's throws always are._

_Thor is not even certain of what is happening until he hears the grotesque squelch of the blade sinking into flesh, and the sharp gasp of stunned pain which slips from somewhere behind him._

_And then Loki is motioning with his hands, what the thunder god recognizes as magic, and a gust of strong wind comes barreling from his left, gusting at his back, before there is the sound of a body dropping heavily to the mulch beneath._

_It all happens in a matter of seconds, Thor's eyes wide and chest tight with adrenaline as he at last turns around and sees, lying behind him, a man, lain on his side, a mace gripped tightly in his stiff, unmoving hands, Loki's knife deeply imbedded in his throat._

"_What in Hel…" he begins, stunned. It dawns on him slowly that the gust of wind had been to prevent the man from falling forward onto Thor with his ax. _

"_There are a dozen of them." He hears Loki speak, voice barely more than a whisper. "Perhaps more. They surround us."_

_Thor looks back to him, seeing Loki's eyes scanning the trees which circles them on all sides. _

_Immediately Thor stands, hand gripping round the hilt of his hammer as he pulls it from his belt. _

"_Who are they?" He asks, not questioning his little brother's estimation._

_Loki has senses more keen than perhaps anyone's. He is hyper aware, Thor knows. He perceives deep._

"_Marauders," Loki answers quietly, glancing and nodding towards the fallen man. "from the looks of that one."_

_He looks to Thor finally, smiling wildly._

"_They seek to rob us, no doubt."_

_Thor returns the smile with a grin._

"_Shall we let them try then?" He asks._

"_And let them learn the folly of attempted thievery upon the sons of Odin." Loki nods, eyes bright._

_That is all the encouragement either of them needs from the other before they launch into action._

_They make quick work of the would-be bandits, disposing thirteen of them within a matter of minutes. _

_Most lye dead, their blood spilt upon the ground, some with their skulls crushed in at the end of Mjolnir's weight, others with their throats sliced through or hearts pierced at the tips of Loki's blades. Other's still did Loki draw his sword upon, __Laevatein, and struck them down like boars._

_Only one was left then to flee, and the two brothers allowed him, laughing heartily at the sight of his retreating back._

"_Verily, was good fun had this night!" Thor bellows loudly, excitement still thrumming through his veins._

_Loki laughs, sheathing his sword._

"_Verily." He concedes, looking up at his older brother and smiling._

"_You fought well brother." Thor says, and Loki's smile brightens, reaching his eyes._

_It does not escape Thor, the almost _relief _which comes over the smaller god whenever he is paid compliments thus. It seems too great an influence to his disposition, Thor thinks vaguely, for his clumsy and thoughtless words to carry such a weight upon Loki._

_It worry's him, in some way._

"_As did you." Loki says, glancing away._

_For a long moment, silence falls between them, Loki for a time seeming to avoid Thor's gaze._

"_We should perhaps move on a ways." He says at last. "Just a safe enough distance from here in case that man we let go concludes to return with more of his _friends_. We would not want to be caught unconscious."_

_Thor nods._

"_Aye. 'Tis sound enough reasoning." The thunder god turns, looking off into the woods, towards the direction he knows he and his brother would have resumed at dawn's break._

_It is dangerous to travel these woods after nightfall, but they are together, and a kilometer or two farther is not so far to ensure their safety._

"_Come then." He says, turning back to Loki. "We will gather our things and douse the fire, and then be on our way."_

_Loki nods in turn, and they start about their work, gathering their packs and beginning to refill them with what various items they had removed in their camp._

_Thor continues to speak excitedly about the battle just fought, Loki periodically humming his acknowledgement._

_It is when they are near fully put together, Thor tying off the strings to his pack, that he hears Loki's voice, strangely thick with apprehension._

"_Wait." He says, and when Thor looks up at him, he sees his brother staring off into the tree line, frozen, as he had been earlier that night._

"_Loki…?" Thor begins, immediately tense._

_And then there comes suddenly a snap, loud in the otherwise silence, as someone stepping upon a branch, and the whip of something slicing rapidly through air._

_Thor has only a moment to register the familiarity of what it sounds like when an arrow is loosed from a bow. Has only a moment to recognize it, and then he hears Loki's voice, pitched high with fear._

"_THOR!" _

_And in an instant, the younger god is upon him, throwing himself bodily over Thor's back._

_Thor feels the impact of the arrow hit, a dull vibration against his back, and hears the soft cry above him, weak and insubstantial._

_It only registers to him a moment later that he feels no pain, and the quick conclusion afterwards that the arrow had missed._

_For an instant, he wonders how, mind confusing and lost. Only then, he feels the limp weight upon him, and the abrupt awareness of a warm damp soaking through his tunic, to the skin beneath._

_His mind explodes in panic._

"_LOKI!" He cries, moving, feeling his brother slip unresponsive from his back._

_He tries to catch him. Tries to act quickly enough to keep him from hitting the ground._

_He only half succeeds, and then there is movement in his periphery, and he looks up to see the bowman step from the clearing, another arrow knocked in his weapon, aimed straight at him._

_A roar of uninhibited _rage_ rips from the thunder god's lips, and in an instant, he has Mjolnir in his hand, and he is throwing it with every last part of his strength, aimed directly for his enemy's head._

_The hammer strikes true, caving the man's skull in as though it were made from something soft, and instantly he drops to the ground, unmoving and dead, the bow and arrow dropped beside him._

_Thor does not even take the time to watch him fully collapse before he brings his eyes back to his brother, cradled in his arms._

"_Loki…" he says, voice lowered to near a whisper, and he sees his little brother is still conscious. But he is suddenly, deathly pale, and he is shivering almost _violently_._

_Thor's eyes shift towards the arrow, and he feels himself go numb with fear as he sees the projectile pierced clean through Loki's thin chest, straight out through his back._

_Blood is spreading rapidly, soaking through his tunic, darkening the green material to almost black, and Loki's face is lined deep in agony, eyes wide and wet with tears. He is looking up at Thor, mouth open as he sucks desperately for air._

"_Thor…" he says, his voice a gurgled rasp._

"_Shhh," Thor replies, cradling Loki's head in one hand, arm supporting the smaller god across the shoulders. "you… you've taken a bad hit. We… we need to get you back. Get you to the healers."_

_Somehow, Loki manages to shake his head, eyes clamping shut and body jerking viciously as a fresh wave of pain washes through him. He bites hard along his lip to keep from crying out._

"_I won't…" he gasps through clenched teeth. The tears at last slip free from his eyes, trailing down into his hair. "I won't make it." He says. "We n-need… need to get it o-out…"_

"_Loki," Thor starts, frightened._

"_We need to get it out NOW!" Loki spits with more strength than he should have. "I ca… I can heal mys-self if… if we get it _out_."_

"_You could bleed to death…" Thor protests weakly, voice shaking._

"_It… _gahh_…" he tries shifting, clearly in overwhelming pain._

"Easy_!" Thor presses frantically, holding him as gently as possible. "Easy."_

_Loki's expression is grimaced and wracked with suffering. He gulps deeply, still trying to force air into his lungs._

"_It is a risk we will ha… have to chance." He replies, voice wavering heavily. "I will di… die… I will die if not."_

"_Loki, I… I do not know." Thor says, his owns eyes damp with tears now. "I fear if we do this…"_

_Suddenly, Loki reaches up, his hand wrapping round the nape of the thunder god's neck. His grip is weak, his hand icily cold, but he looks Thor unflinchingly in the eye, his gaze hard as steel._

"_It is the po… possibility of death ag-gainst… against the certainty." He says. "Please Thor…"_

_And that is all the encouragement Thor needs._

_He nods._

"_Alright then." He says, swallowing. "Alright."_

_For some seconds more, he continues holding his brother, gauging how best to shift him to do this._

"_The arrow will need to be taken out through your back." He finally says, and Loki nods stiffly, understanding. His eyes are clamped tight, sweat forming thick along his forehead._

"_I am going to put you on your knees." The thunderer goes on, gently. _

_Another nod, and carefully as he is able, Thor begins to move him, lifting him up and turning him, trying his best not to jostle him._

_Still, Loki is not entirely able to keep quiet groans of pain from slipping past his lips, and as Thor at last settles him on his knees, and Loki leans forward onto his hands, his arms shake near uncontrollably._

_The blood is thick and spread wide through the back of his tunic, pooled on the ground where Loki had lain for the past few minutes._

_Thor keeps an arm wrapped round his brother's thin waist, holding him steady, his other hand smoothing back locks of Loki's hair from his forehead in a sorry attempt to calm and sooth him._

"_P… please Thor…" Loki's voice trembles suddenly._

_Thor exhales._

"_Alright." He says. "Loki, the pain will be immense."_

"_I know." Loki grinds out between his teeth. "I know, just… just do it."_

"_You should have something to bite down on." Thor remembers suddenly, and Loki shakes his head._

"_My hand…" he says. "It wi-will suffice."_

_Thor hesitates a moment, but he knows he is wasting time now. He needs to get this arrow out of his brother. And so he nods, his arm tightening round the younger god's waist._

"_Ready?" He asks._

_Another, stiff nod._

_And Thor takes hold of the shaft, seconds seeming to stretch on too long before, in one, swift motion, he pulls it clean from Loki's body._

_Loki jerks violently in his arms, his fist pressed to his mouth, between his teeth. He bites down hard enough to draw blood, and from his lips tears a muffled and ragged scream, choked out._

_As the arrow is finally freed from him, the scream tapers into soft whimpers, and Loki tries to swallow them down, his hands coming up and pressing, shaking, against the wound through his chest._

_Blood spills hot and thick over his hands. Too much blood, and Thor holds him about the shoulders, worry creasing heavy along his brow._

"_Loki…" he begins, voice unsteady. "can… can you heal it?"_

_A long moment passes without reply, and Thor feels his heart constrict._

"_Loki!"_

_Finally, Loki nods, the movement weak and uncoordinated._

_But it's there. _

"_I ne… need a… m-moment." He says._

_Thor falls silent and still, knowing his brother will need to concentrate._

_And finally, after what seems forever, the familiar gold and green glow of Loki's magic begins to emit from his hands, still pressed and shaking against his chest._

_His head is bowed low, forehead nearly against the forest floor, and Thor waits, watching, nearly nauseas with his concern._

_It is only when he sees the skin round the exit wound through his brother's back begin, slowly, to knit back together, that Thor allow himself any relief at all._

_It takes several, long, agonizing minutes, but eventually, the wounds close themselves together, and with that, Loki slumps down in exhaustion, his hands, still lathered in his own blood, falling away from his chest._

_Thor shifts his hold, wrapping his arms round his brother's chest and waist, catching him before he lists to the side and falls. Gently, he lowers him to the ground, cradling the nape of his neck._

_Loki stares up at him, eyes half-lidded._

_The spell he's just performed has drained him terribly, Thor realizes. He looks like he is barely holding to consciousness. _

"_Loki, are you well?" The thunderer asks hesitantly. _

_Several, long seconds pass without answer, Loki's eyes opening and closing at a slow pace._

_Until finally his lips part, and a near soundless "Aye." passes from them._

_And then his eyes slip closed and stay thus._

"… _I must rest." He says sluggishly, voice coming slurred and wasted. "But… but briefly." He adds._

_Thor nods, still supporting him in his arms. His throat is tight._

"_Then rest brother." He says softly. "And when you wake, I give you my word, you will do so upon your own sheets, in the palace. I will take you back to the city Loki."_

_Loki's lids flutter then, struggling to open, only making it halfway as he stares dazedly up at the elder god, his hand lifting, weak and directionless towards Thor's face._

"… _Mustn't," he breaths near soundlessly. "mustn't worry yourself s-so… big brother…" he smiles frailly up at Thor, and Thor feels his heart sink. "… wi… will be well…" the smaller god breathes one last time._

_And then, once more, his eyes slip closed, and he stills entirely, and Thor knows he has at last lost consciousness._

_He swallows down his own grief stricken worry, and carefully, gently, he gathers his brother's too light frame into his arms, lifting him easily and holding him to his chest, cradling his head against it. It is moments like these he is so bleakly reminded of how much smaller Loki is than himself. Reminded again that Loki is his _little _brother, and it is he who is charged with his protection._

_A charge he has failed in tonight, when instead Loki chose to protect him._

_But he will not fail in his word this time. He will let nothing keep him from returning Loki safely back into the city, into his own bed._

_If nothing else, he will accomplish that._

_And so silently, holding Loki secure and careful to him, he begins the trek back through the woods, back the way they came, and woe, he thinks, be onto any who should try to stop him._

"Thor?"

…

"_Thor_?!"

He snaps back from memory, jarringly into the present, only with it does the feel of memory remain.

And he thinks of a brother who had been willing to give his life for him.

Jane is sitting across from him, her face lined in deep concern, brow furrowed and lips pulled into a frown.

Her hand is reached across the round table, resting atop his own, squeezing gently.

He barely is aware of it there.

"Thor, are you alright?" She asks. "What just… I lost you there for a second."

He blinks, off balance and confused, and Jane's frown pulls tighter.

"Thor, what's going on here?" She pushes, and now there is fear seeping into her voice. "I thought… Loki is… dead. He was _dead_. We saw it happen."

Thor only stares back at her.

He doesn't know what to say.

"Thor, you're scaring me." She says. "Why won't you talk to me?"

Another, long moment, and Jane's hand is squeezing tighter now over his. She could squeeze hard as she was able, and he knows he would hardly even feel it.

It frightens him, sometimes, how weak mortals are.

"Is this… is this some _game _he played?" She goes on, voice tilting towards frantic. "Did he trick us? I don't… I don't understand why he…"

She trails off when Thor's eyes grow distant.

"There are so many times he has saved my life…" he suddenly says, voice far away as his sight.

Jane's brow furrows, not understanding.

"I'm sorry?" She says.

And finally, the god's eyes come back to her.

"Jane, if…" he starts, hesitant. "if you had known my brother before you…" his head shakes. "you would not believe him the same man you know now."

"Thor, I don't understand." She answers, dismayed. "What's going on?"

"He was so different." Thor continues, as though he hasn't heard her at all. "Quiet. Within himself, in… in a way like no other I've ever known. He… he understood things Jane." Thor looks to her almost pleadingly, as though begging her to comprehend. "He understood about things in a way no… no one so young should ever have been able to. He was so smart… so…" his voice trails off, and he looks away.

"It was I who bore irrationality and aggression as though something to be proud of." He says softly. "It was Loki there always to pull me back and calm me. To speak wisely and make me see the foolery of my actions. Only…"

Jane sees a shudder work through the god's massive frame, and something in her gut coils and tightens sickeningly.

"Rare did I ever listen." He says, voice barely more than a whisper, and it seems incongruous, that such a small voice should come from the god of thunder. Such a _shamed_ voice. "And… I know not when it was Loki became this creature of impulse as he… as has. Only I can recall now times he was… was taunted by our peers, that he should be more as I am. I thought… thought nothing of it at the time. Thought it only in jest, and for it I would laugh with my friends at my brother's expense. Had I known…"

He stops, great hand lifting and wiping at his eyes.

"H-had I known how it hurt him, I… Only it is that Loki was ever _silent_." He says, voice now filled with frustration. "He never said… he never… and I did not think him to take it to heart. Why would he? Loki was ever above the influence of others, I was sure! He would not yield to such things."

"Thor…" Jane starts, worry building nauseatingly in her throat.

But he continues on.

"But I am a fool now, I see." He says, and his voice cracks. "I am a _deliberately_ blind fool. I knew… I… I knew for many centuries of Loki's unhappiness. I could see it in him every day we spent together. He was always so horribly _sad_, only… only I had convinced myself the fault lay with him. If only he could be like all of us, I had thought, would not he be happy? If he could only give up his strange ways, would not the mockery and derision stop? I thought to _blame_ him, Jane! And thusly I did! I said such words to him!" Thor tells to her desperately. "As though his very nature were something he should be faulted and punished for! As though he ever would have any choice in how he was. And then for me to display such gall as to claim shock when he broke and tried to be as me."

Tears form thick in Thor's eyes, and fall then unbidden down his cheeks.

"I did not want to believe he could be so broken." He says haltingly. "I did not want to see any such blemish upon what was my perfect existence, to face such a bleak truth so close to me. Did not wish to believe such darkness could touch me. I neglected his sorrow Jane, I… I made it into something unreal."

Again, he wipes at his eyes, and when he looks at her again, they are red.

"He _loved_ me." He says, and his voice is thick now with agonized grief. "He loved me Jane, truly as the stars burn, he loved me. And showed to me that love every day, showed me in how many times he sacrificed himself to save me. I _knew _his love. And for it I repaid him with willful ignorance to how his heart hurt, and called him coward before my friends for wishing to satisfy their approval."

He looks away, face crumpling.

"I know not how I could…" he stammers. "how it is I could treat him…"

Whatever he had hoped to say, he is unable, as finally a broken sob pushes just barely past his lips, and he covers his face with his hands, his great shoulders heaving as he succumbs to the burden of his grief.

Jane doesn't know what to do. Has scarcely any thought of how she should even respond to his words. Lost to how she could possibly comfort him now.

She has never seen him more broken hearted, and the sight of it makes her own wither in her chest.

"Thor…" she breaths his name quietly, almost fearfully. And slowly then, she pushes herself up from her seat and moves around the table, kneeling at his side. She places her hand along his wrist, and not for the first time does it strike her how absurdly thick and powerful it feels. Not for the first time is she reminded he is something much more than human.

She swallows, uncertain.

"Thor you can't…" she hesitates a moment. "you can't keep doing this to yourself. You didn't… I mean… we all make mistakes Thor. Siblings pick on each other. That's… that's just what they do. And we all… we all want to fit it. You can't blame yourself for the way Loki turned out. For… for what happened to him."

Thor shakes his head, face still hidden from her.

"I was meant to protect him." He says, voice muffled against his palms.

"Oh, Thor…" Jane says, her brow lining in pain for him. "you did. Baby, you did. You were a good brother. You couldn't have known that…"

"He was ever of sensitive heart." Thor cuts her off abruptly, his hands falling away, revealing a tear streaked face. Again he shakes his head, eyes once more distant. Jane sees his hands clench to fists along the table. "I _did_ know. And that is the burden I must now carry. Where for others words meant little and jests were only so, Loki…" he pauses, swallowing thickly as fresh tears form and fall silently. "Loki took such things to heart. Always… always. I knew so, and still I… still I allowed it. Still I took to joining in it, and giving criticism for how deeply he let it affect him."

He exhales a shuddering breath.

"It is that I did not understand _why_ he was so affected!" He goes on, almost angrily. "And it… it caused me embarrassment to see! And then I…" he falters, turning his face away. "I recall times I would verbally chastise him for humiliating me in public, for being so sensitive. I would tell him… I would tell him no true man should ever cry so openly. Should ever let the words of others hurt him. I…"

Jane's hand over his wrist tightens, and she feels him tremble beneath her.

"Until he ceased to show emotion at all, and that also…" Thor goes on, voice suddenly drained and dead sounding. "that also I blinded myself to… That also."

Silence descends, finally.

Jane knows not what to say.

There is guilt heavy in Thor, and perhaps, maybe, his words are true. Perhaps he was not always the best of brothers.

Perhaps, even, he held some part in Loki's unmaking.

But surely as she saw Loki there, not half an hour before, did she see the other god begging Thor's forgiveness and understanding while on hands and knees.

Did she see how desperately Loki does love Thor.

And Jane knows, were Thor so bad a brother as all that, Loki would hold no such love for him as that.

Her hand squeezes over his wrist again, and she reaches up, pushing a lock of his golden hair back behind his ear.

"Do you believe him?" She says finally, her voice quite, but loud in the silence of her small kitchen.

For a while, Thor says nothing.

And then he says,

"I know not."

Jane pushes herself to her feet then, looking down at him, and she reaches out, taking his broad face into her hands, guiding his eyes up to hers.

"But you want to." She says, and slowly, he nods.

"Then you owe it to both yourselves to find him, and figure this out." She says.

He blinks, surprise clear in his unnaturally blue eyes.

She smiles weakly back.

"Maybe he'll surprise you." She says. "Maybe he really did give his life to save yours. Hey, he's done it before you said, right?"

Another, stiff nod, and her smile grows a little.

"He loves you still Thor." She says, and her head shakes, lips falling. "Can't you see that?"

Tears slip out from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks.

"But I don't think he knows you love him." She says. "I don't think he knows anyone's ever loved him."

He looks away then, face lined with sorrow, and Jane's hand falls to his shoulder, squeezing tight.

"You need to find him Thor, before he does something stupid."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7:**

Oh, how he wishes they could just simply _kill_ him.

These pathetic, _weak_ mortals. If simply had they the _strength_ to end him, then mightn't he go with honor and glory to those hallowed halls of his fallen brethren? Mightn't he go to where _she_ doubtless now rests, deserving above them all of her place amongst brave and unyielding warriors? Mightn't he find her there, and be with her again, so that in this one wrong among countless coating his hands red, he should find the release of forgiveness and to only tell her he is sorry?

Sorry, sorry… he is so unspeakably sorry and Mother… Mother… he wants to cry upon her shoulder that she _is_ his Mother.

But no, he thinks, as he feels the lurching impact of heavy metal slugs crushing against his chest, feeling as they only deflect off him to ricochet another direction, leaving him with naught but likely ugly bruising, even were these humans able to fell him in the heat of battle, he would not find the gates of Valhalla to greet him. Only the cold, unforgiving ruins of Hel. For he is the monster, and they, in all their sorrowful frailty, are not.

Honor and glory are things never meant for monsters. Never meant for the likes of him.

But oh, how he _wishes_.

Perhaps were it the Avengers, but no, this is not their Kingdom. Here they hold no power. And so only have they sent this lands sad excuse for guardsmen to stop his swath of destruction. He wants to laugh at the absurdity of it. He hasn't yet stepped foot outside this concrete square with its empty, metal boxes, but these men are utterly terrified. He thinks soon they will turn and run away, until greater forces can be gathered to smite him.

Let them come then. It matters not.

Loki knows true, even were the team of misbegotten Midgardian hero's to come, they could not end him. They could do nothing, really, were he to desire _their _end.

It is only Thor then, only Thor who can now snuff out his misery. Or perhaps Heimdall, were he to come, or were he to send a company of soldiers from Asgard to neutralize him.

Perhaps, Loki wonders detachedly, Thor has already gone off to rescue Odin from the wastes of Svartalfhiem, and the All-Father himself will grant Loki the death he now so desperately seeks.

Odin, of them all, could kill Loki with surety and ease.

He doubts not the All-Father's wish to do so now, after he was so wholly deceived by the one he had once called son.

When Loki had drawn him to the world of the Dark Elves, and then left him, weakened and shielded from the eyes of the gatekeeper. For even Odin did not know the secret paths as Loki did, and unable to take his sleep, the mischief god had known, he would find himself without the strength to conjure enough dark magic to bring himself back to Asgard.

It would not have lasted, this too Loki understood. Eventually, even without the sleep, Odin would have recovered enough strength to free himself.

But it had been the best of his petty revenge Loki could manage. He had not the power to destroy Odin.

Loki knows, even had he, he would not have…

… He could not have…

Something hot and burning rips across his jaw, turning his head aside with the force of the impact, and Loki is drawn brutally back into the present, realizing he's just been shot in the face.

It barely hurts, but for the unpleasant heat and bruising depth of the blow.

Still, his temper rankles at being so directly assaulted, and he turns, finding with his eyes and pinning the man who had fired the shot. His eyes glow with the power of his siedr, his hands involuntarily curling to fists as they, too, are engulfed by the blinding glow of green and gold magic.

The man's eyes widen, suddenly aware of the god's attention on him, and he steps back, his grip on his weapon wavering as he seems to realize his own, impending demise.

"W-wait…" he sputters, voice trembling noticeably.

Loki takes a step nearer, and then he pauses, scenting it in the air long before he ever catches sight of his lightening or hears the boom of his thunder.

A moment later, and Thor comes falling out of the sky, landing with a shuddering impact between him and the terrified mortal, the pavement cracking under his feet.

"Loki." He says, his hammer hanging loosely from his fingers at his side, his eyes hot blue white, the surge of his power through him.

And Loki lets loose a laugh too like a sob. His own hands come up, held out and inviting, leaving himself a true and sure target. He leers at the older god, and he feels mad.

"Come you so quickly to end my misery?" He asks, and his voice is rough. "You do me a mercy Thor. Had I but died the first time I meant to. Please Thor. I want to die."

"Loki, stop this." Thor says back, and Loki knows he must be imagining the pained stripe through his brother's voice. Imagining the lined brow, and his crumpling expression.

"I want to die." Loki says again.

And now he turns from Thor, and he steps away. He makes it two steps, before at once, he collapses to his knees, and his hands come over his head, and he bends forward, his forehead to the ground.

"I want to die… I want to die… please…" he entreats in a wavering voice. "if only this one mercy you could grant to an undeserving beast as I am Thor. Do not let me continue as I am. Do not let me live."

"Loki, stop this, _please_." Thor pleads, and his voice is thick with anguish. "Please, brother. Do not speak so."

There is a hot sting against the backs of his eyes, and Loki blinks furiously against it, fingers burying in the thick locks of his dark hair.

"Brother?" He breathes out, and confusion floods his mind. His head shakes. "You seek to deceive me Thor." He says.

"Loki, no." Thor presses, stepping forward, cautiously. "No, I…"

"I thought you too simple minded, too pure hearted to harbor cruelty within you Thor." Loki cuts him off. "But the mortals are a corrupting force. I suppose it not beyond their power to nurture cruelty within you. When in you then instilled humility, and I could not. I could not, in a thousand years of trying."

"Loki, please, listen to reason." Again Thor entreats, stepping closer.

And like a wave, the rage comes over the younger god, feeling the encroachment of his once brother.

Abruptly, he turns, a roar tearing from his throat as his hands lash forward, a surge of magic erupting from his fingertips.

The blast crashes dead on into Thor's chest, blasting the thunderer back some fifty meters, his sailing body barely missing the human policeman behind.

And then Loki is on his feet, stalking towards Thor with long, fast strides, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, pure magical energy crackling within his palms, waiting to explode. And that's all it takes to send the mortals running.

Within moments, the lot is clear but for the two gods.

Thor is struggling to his knees, head spinning with the impact of landing so hard. His chest burns with the heat of Loki's attack, his armor singed and broken apart in places.

Loki hasn't hit him with a blast of power so strong in longer than Thor can recall. Not of his own magic, and never before intentionally, as now.

And Thor's worry is at once deep.

"Lok…" he begins, and is cut abruptly short as he's forced to dodge another blast of magic, rolling back up to his knees. And now he knows Loki is far from jesting, and he scrambles to his feet as quickly as he's able.

"Why do you insist in continuing in this farce!?" Loki snaps, sharp, curving blades forming in his hands. He turns, coming back around and letting fly the one in his right. Again, Thor barely manages to dodge the projectile as it whizzes past his arm, taking a chunk of fabric with it.

Not a second later, Loki releases his other blade, and this one strikes true, burying half deep into Thor's thigh. The thunder god roars with pain, his hand automatically going to the knife and ripping it free, tossing it angrily to the ground.

When he looks back, Loki is still coming at him, his eyes wide and wild and desperate. They are thick with a wet sheen, and tears spill unrelentingly from them, down his pale face.

"Loki, I do not want to fight you!" Thor tries frantically to make his little brother hear him, stepping back as Loki advances.

"Why do you not kill me then!?" Loki barks in response, his voice pitching high. "Why does no one… no one let this end for me?!"

Another conjured knife, another near miss. Loki doesn't hesitate to follow up with another blast of magic, and Thor isn't quick enough to maneuver out of its way as it tosses him with ease onto his back, rolling him several turns.

He's reminded bitterly of why Loki was always so much more formidable a foe than others ever had the grace to give him credit for.

"You and Odin…" Loki is sneering, moving towards him still. "the two of you. You claim to love me, beseech my return and my loyalty to your Realm. You pursue after me when you think me out of your control, only it is when you have me that you cast me aside and rid yourselves of the reminder of my existence!"

At once, there is a wooden staff conjured in Loki's hands, and he is upon Thor now, swinging the bow around and nearly smashing the butt of it into the larger god's temple, Thor only just managing to dodge below the attack.

He realizes he's going to have to defend himself, or Loki is going to just keep on as he is. And so he counters the missed blow, bringing his fist up against his brother's now exposed ribs. It isn't a hard hit, but it's enough to throw Loki further off balance, a small grunt escaping the trickster as he stumbles to the side.

"Loki, stop this madness and let me speak!" Thor bellows desperately.

And Loki laughs, a tortured wreck of a sound, half mad and edging towards maniacal as he regains his footing and turns back to face the thunderer.

"Let you speak?" He asks, leering at Thor. "Oh, you mean as I was so graciously allowed upon my return to Asgard?" He throws out another energy blast, lazy and slow, and Thor dodges it easily. He realizes his mistake an instant later, when Loki brings his staff back around and cracks it hard against his face, knocking him off balance.

"Do you know Thor, what my _trial _consisted of?" Loki seethes, more tears slipping down his cheeks. "But of course not. What an inane question. Since, after all, you were no where present at the time."

Another blast of magic, and Thor takes hold now of Mjolnir, holding it up to absorb the energy.

"Well then, allow me to enlighten you to the specifics. I was brought up before the All-Father, chained like some wild beast, and made to listen as he disavowed himself of me entirely, as easily as if I had never mattered to him at all, before he proceeded to make clear to me that I should be _dead_! That I had no right to have lived as long as I had before banishing me from seeing the light of day for the next four thousand years! From seeing even my own… my own Mother! The greater mercy would have been to end me. Oh, but are those not the words of a loving, _grieving_ father, Thor? He asked me not even how I had come to be as I was! _No one_ _asked me_!"

His voice cracks and wavers with emotion before he jumps in on the thunder god suddenly, turning the staff again and jamming it upward to sink into Thor's abdomen, and now Thor is reminded of how brutally fast his brother is as he doubles over from the strength of the blow, the wind momentarily knocked out of him.

"Do you know… do you know what they… they did to me?" Loki says, and abruptly his attack ceases, the tension in his frame seeming to slack for an instant. "What they did…" he says again, voice quieting to almost a whisper.

He looks away, shaking his head, his hand coming up and wiping viciously against his eyes.

"No one asked me." He repeats brokenly. "No one cared. I was… was simply condemned. No one needed to know…"

The mischief god's eyes shift back to Thor then, glowing green hot with the power of his seidr, his teeth bared, face lined in agony.

"No one ever even… e-even _acknowledged_ any wrong… any wrong had been done to me." He says, voice thick now with his tears, running in streams still down his face. "It was only me wh-who… who was to bear the weight of, of, of guilt. Of fault. No one ever even told me th… they were sorry for deceiving me, for letting me believe my own race a race of monster for a _th-thousand years_! A thousand _years_ and more! Fo-for… for allowing my _entire_ life to b-be… be nothing more than a _lie_! Oh, the god of lies indeed! Only I am not the deceiver, but the deceived."

With the sudden lull in his attack, Thor knew this was perhaps his only chance to speak to his brother, to perhaps make him hear, and so he took it, stepping forward, one hand upraised in a sign of peace.

"Loki, brother, _please_ listen to me. I am listening to you. I hear your words. You are right. Do you understand me? I acknowledge your grievances as _right_."

But Loki only narrows his eyes at the older god suspiciously, and almost instantly, the despair upon his features turns back to rage, and in the next moment, he is again attacking.

Blow after blow he rains down on Thor, the offensive maneuvers in such quick succession, Thor is given no choice but to fall fully into defense, parrying and blocking and dodging what he can, and still too many blows find their mark, until Thor feels himself beginning to reel.

"How have you grown so cruel Thor!?" Loki spits through gritted teeth as he presses his advantage, never letting up for a moment. "Why will you not kill me!? Show me this one mercy, you fool! You utter fool! Do you not see I wish to die?! Do you not see it?! Why will no one give me relief from THIS LIFE!?"

"Loki, STOP!" Thor at last bellows when he feels one of his brother's blade's slash open a cut along his palm. He's had enough of this now. Loki has lost his mind, he at last realizes, and needs to be put down forcibly.

And so he does.

Ducking below another attack, he sweeps Mjolnir in an arc, aimed for Loki's knees, and in one motion, sweeps the smaller god's legs out from beneath him. Loki lands hard on his back, and Thor wastes no time, leaning down and placing his hammer upon the tricksters chest, leaving him immobile.

Loki snarls like some wild animal. Still gripping the wooden bow in his hands, he lashes upward with it, intent on raking the weapon across Thor's face, but Thor catches his wrist then, and squeezes _hard_, until Loki's fingers go numb and the staff is dropped.

Thor kicks it away, grasping Loki's other wrist and leaning down, pinning his little brother's arms to the ground, above his head.

"_Stop_." He says through gritted teeth, staring into Loki's face.

And Loki stares back, eyes wide and startled. Slowly, Thor sees the magic slip from his eyes, leaving only his shockingly green irises in its wake, and from those eyes slip more tears still, free and unceasing.

Loki breaths hard, his chest heaving beneath the weight of Mjolnir, and gradually, Thor feels the tension drain out of his body, until he is lying limp and defeated, and he turns his face away, eyes closing.

"Please," he begs in barely a whisper. "please, just kill me. I w-wish… I wish to die."

"Loki, no you _don't_." Thor presses.

"I do." Loki says. "I do. I do. I k-killed her. Don't you see? I killed Mother. I am a monster good only fo-for dying. Kill me."

"Loki, Mother's death was _not_ your doing. Do you understand me?" Thor says in return, voice almost pleading. "You cannot blame yourself for that."

More tears slip past Loki's lids, and he shakes his head.

"I told… I told that monster where… where to go to bring down the palaces shields." He chokes out. "It was my fault Mother died. It was…"

"No, Loki," Thor presses again. "it was not your intent. You were angry at Odin and me. You let that anger and bitterness drive you towards a thoughtless decision. But it was _not_ your intent that Mother be hurt. You must understand. Malakith and his forces were already upon us. They had already infiltrated our guard. Kurse had already infiltrated the walls of the palace. There was _nothing_ you could have done then to stop him."

Again, Loki shakes his head, and he won't look at Thor.

"I am a monster." He cries.

And Thor's face crumples, his heart sinking deep.

"Oh brother, brother…" his own, great head shakes in despair, and he moves Mjolnir away as he gathers Loki up, holding him against his chest and rocking him gently, his own eyes thick suddenly with tears.

Loki gives no protest. He doesn't fight. Only hangs there limply, unmoving.

Thor cradles the back of his head, pressing his face to his shoulder and closing his eyes, burying his own to Loki's crown.

"My poor brother…" Thor cries, and he has never meant words more than those.

/

**AN: As always, a huge thank you to all of my readers and reviewers! Hope you liked the chapter and let me know your thoughts!**


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